 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump! Mind pump! With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. I got to trivia a question for you. What deadlifts 880 pounds? Bench Press is 650 pounds. Can squat 950 pounds. And can overhead press 490 pounds. Here's your three choices. A mystical centaur! Here's your three choices. A polar bear. Yeah. The Incredible Hulk. Or Ragnoceros. Or Robert Oberst. Which one do you think is... We're going Incredible Hulk. For 5000. Wrong. Adam, what's your choice? I think it's the polar bear. Both wrong. Actually that's what Justin said and you said it too. He knew he was wrong. You're a terrible test taker. No. It's actually Robert Oberst. The human Sasquatch. He's a massive human being. But less hairy. Super nice guy too. We met him in... He's awesome. We were in LA podcasting and I forget. I always forget that people can be that big. He's fucking huge. There's not a lot of men that make me feel like a little child. You know next to... He literally picked you up and rocked you. He did. Like a baby. He picked you up like a little child. Baby. You know what sucks about a guy that big? If he wanted to rape you you couldn't do anything about it. Totally. Like I feel like... That's the first thing you think of. I feel like... When he scooped me up that's what I thought. Oh god. He either wants to eat me or either wants to rape me. Either one of them. This is going to go down over me. You know it's worse about that because that would suck. If he's eating you alive. That would suck. That would be a terrible thing. But what would be worse is that me and Justin couldn't help you. We would be crying. Watching it. Yeah. We would be praying and watching. What do you think? I wonder how many normal sized men that he could just handle and take on on his own. Because there's no doubt at least multiple. I mean there's two normal sized men. You're not fucking with him. He could take on two big normal sized guys at least. Maybe up to four. And he could take on at least... I don't know 30 to 40. You mean are you getting dog piled by him? Like small people. Oh hipsters yeah. You're a pancake. He could easily fuck up. Anyway totally a pancake. He's a super cool guy. He's got a great story. He's got a... He's a fucking world record holder bro. He's got a rivalry with a British strongman competitor. That's right. You hear about it in this episode. So we had a lot of fun talking to Robert Oberst. Now you can find him on Instagram. He's got an awesome Instagram page where you can see him lifting various objects of massive size. His Instagram page is at Robert Oberst. O-B-E-R-S-T. So here's my pump talking to Robert. I'm actually just getting ready to head to Houston for like a training camp for World Strongest Man. And I'll be training at a place called Jet Engine, Jet Engine CrossFit. Now let me... Okay. So when is the Strongest Man? The World Strongest Man? We don't know the date. It's looking like maybe around April. April? And it's always rumors until you get real close. But I know that we have a... What is that? That's a great question. It's one of those things. They've got their reasons for it. Mostly I think it's they just don't want people to be out there. They like to hold the results until it comes out on TV. Oh, I see. I mean it's weird though because it's 2017 and... Social media. Everyone else everything, you know. It's gonna leak. Getting each like an old way and it just hasn't changed over. Yeah, I think it's that but that's just my guess. I don't really know. But it just tends to be that way. We went to Africa and I think I had five weeks notice. Four and a half. Literally I had to get my shots within two days or I wouldn't have been able to get them. So you know it's in April or you think it's in April. When do you start training for that? Well with Worlds it's different. Normally I wouldn't start specific training until like maybe two and a half months out about. But Worlds is just, it's so many options. You never know what you're gonna do. We have prelims and we have finals. And you know I mean it's anybody's guess what the events are. So when you say specific training, you mean specifically for the events you know? Yeah. So like I'm gonna go by what I think is happening and what I know from history and studying it and everything. And I'm gonna train for that. It's always gonna be a loading event. It's always gonna be a press and some type of deadlift. We've been doing a lot of squats lately so I'll be ready for that. Basically you gotta be ready for everything when World Strongest Man comes around. And right before that we have Log Lifting World Championships in London and I'll be there for that and I wanna break the world record. I have the American record right now. What is it? It's 210 kilos. 200 and fuck I don't know. You don't know you're over it. You don't have to know. Bro you don't know you're over it. It's heavy. I remember the way it fell from my chest. That's what I know. Bro you ask and that's how heavy it was. You just tell me you wanna remember it. Once you get that strong. You ask anybody in this room what our PR is for curls. You know it. It's like heavier than everybody else. That's what I know. So how much of your training is this specific type training that is just focused on like core lifts? Right now it's three days a week core and then one more strongman events but I'm kind of transitioning into a new idea. I've been doing this for almost five years now and I feel like I've adapted well. I relied a lot on my football training and my strength background from that kind of stuff so now I'm using more I guess I feel more like a vet than a rookie anymore so I'm kind of switching my idea and I do a little bit more of the like I'll do stones in the middle of the week and I'll do them on a Sunday stuff like that. It's kind of sprinkled in more now so that's a very long way of answering. What led you to go that direction and start training like that? I felt like I wasn't getting enough time under the weird stuff. You know like there's no... There's a lot of skill involved. Yeah and you can't mimic a stone really. Right a million zurchers still is not the same as his own. Exactly. And after I mentioned earlier I lost him like about 75 pounds and after I did that I was training for a show in Texas which I won by the way. Kept the shit out everybody. I was chugging beers halfway through. Probably forgot the weights. I don't know the weights though. I know it was heavy. It was good though. There was five events and by the third event I walked out in the crowd and I was taking beers from people with stonecoats. I was chugging. Yeah. It was good. So for that show I switched it up a little bit because I wanted to feel what it was like under my new weight and stuff is just you know when you're running with a thousand pounds on your back you want to know what it's going to be like after losing that much weight. So I did it for that show. I came out and crushed it and I kind of just adapted my training from there. Why'd you lose the weight? A couple reasons. First it was just that I was too big. I was 440 and I didn't feel good. You are a massive human. I'm a skinny 365 now. At the time I mean everyone rams it down your throat that you got to be as big as possible to be strong and it's this idea and strong man and powerlifting and it just it got kind of worn into my head that I needed to be as big as I could be. So I would eat everything and I would you know keep my cardio to a minimum. I did what everyone else said that we should be doing and it just didn't work for me. I remember I went up on the Arnold stage and man when you step up there there's just thousands and thousands of lights flashing off going off and everything. This is the second biggest show other than this one I just did in Manchester. This was the biggest show I'd ever done. Get up on that stage and you're elevated over everybody and I remember taking the steps up the stairs and walking out on the stage and I was out of breath and I was like fuck man this isn't how it's supposed to be. I felt like crap I didn't perform well I just I basically wasn't good with being that heavy. So that really changed everything and then I have a two year old son and so like I'm I'm all about being there and being around and playing with him when he's 15, 16 and all that you know like I'm not I'm not trying to be tapped out before that so did you did you recognize that pushing your body that extreme before that could be unhealthy for you and you just knew it didn't give a fuck anyways? What's your mindset? That's exactly it I was willing to do whatever it took I got to the point where it didn't matter what the end result was for me it mattered what I had done before that I didn't really care and that changes when you have a kid it changes when when other things that happen in your life and you realize like you are more valuable than the sport in itself it's a good feeling and so are there things that you look back and go like fuck that was crazy I was doing that yeah at that Arnold specifically we did a 1600 pound yoke and I'm not trying to bag on the Arnold but it's also it's a ridiculous lift and they cut it out it's not going to be there this year and the stage is just it's not concrete it's a stage and it's got rubber mats so basically every time you step with 1600 pounds on your back you sink like a half inch at least at least a half inch oh my god and that thing is oh my god I remember feeling my spine like the tail end of my spine just shifting back and forth as I was stepping and I'm thinking to myself like this is probably going to make it to where I'm not going to be able to walk one day and there's I think three or four guys who have legitimately two of them ended their careers and two of them had to have crazy surgeries just because of that one that one event whoa so it's one of those things that I wish I would have just been like nah I'm cool I'll skip the Arnold damn what about some of the extreme measures you probably had to take to get to put the weight on to be 440 dude it's not that bad for me to get to 440 really? you're like I could just cruise there if I wanted to I'm starving myself to be 360 damn I'm 10 pounds lighter than I graduated high school right now what? ridiculous hold on a sec you were 370 pounds in high school yeah I was like 76 or something like that at the Nike Combine when you go as a senior like if you get invited you go and you get measured and everything and I was like 376 377 something like that just a big human always nah I mean I was short and really chubby for a long time and then over one summer did you get picked on? yeah a lot I bet those guys regretted that shit but you went through your growth they all kind of just faded away yeah I bet they did they ran for the hills it was done after that but over one summer I was working in a camp and I came back and I'd grown 7 inches in one fucking summer so like I remember being in my tent and like rubbing on my legs and stuff all night cause they hurt so bad but came back and I was awkwardly linked like all lengthy and stuff for like probably 6 months before I caught back up oh that's crazy what got you into this sport in the first place I mean you've done strength sports in the past no I was just football man I wasn't trying to be the best at lifting weights I was just trying to be an athlete and I enjoyed it in the gym I enjoyed training in the gym with football I was always one of the stronger guys and I like to push like maxes and different things one of the things though like we would hand clean instead of deadlift and so I remember trying to have the biggest hand clean I possibly could just loving the idea of being better at it and then I was done with football and I was working at a club in Santa Cruz called the Catalyst which is it's a great time good times there I had so many good stories you probably took my ID there a few times man I had a blast there actually it's crazy you say that you do look pretty good I know I was going to say now it's all coming together I might have read it I was usually working the front or if there was a big artist I was hanging out in the back with them I would always be one of those two spots man you must have seen some cool shows there dude I had more fun than I should have so much fun it was a good time so I was there and there was a buddy of mine from junior college who was an amateur strong man and he just kept begging me to do it he was so obsessed he was so obsessed with strong man I'm sorry Evan I'm going to tell a story yeah I even said his name Evan from Santa Cruz, California man we he was so obsessed with strong man he couldn't not talk about it so there would be a pretty girl or something at the show come talk to him which was rare because Evan is an ugly guy and he would just talk to him about truck pulls I remember we were in Colorado this will get him interested we were in Colorado and it's a rare thing for me to go to a strip club I think I've only been like four times in my life I just don't see spending money like that yeah that's what I say too it's a waste of money man that's like buying water what are you doing that's a nice cube quote don't give me credit but we were at a strip club and Evan just looked so uncomfortable so I bought him a dance and the girl took him to the private room or whatever we were all hanging out and he comes walking out like way too early for it to be over way too early and he just walked past us and she comes and sits down next to us and she was talking about I had no idea a strong man had that much detail to it and she was like just wow that he didn't have any interest in anything other than talking about strong man during the dance so he was the first one to probably turn you on to it he was he got me to come in and day one day one I tried to log press and broke the amateur world record the first time you attempted it yeah it was like I think it was 310 was the record at the time I don't remember what it was and I hit like just barely over it and put it down and I think it might have been novice record I don't remember I hit like close to 350 the first time I'd ever touched a log I remember putting it down and being like so was that any good and he was like get the fuck out of here you know dude at that point were you like oh man I'm made for this it was it man that was it I went home I had to google it and figure out what it all was about and everything I never really watched so I looked it up and studied a lot of tape like I did with football watched a lot of YouTube and then I was I was in man I knew I could make it work if I just dove all the way in now do you do you handle your own programming or do you have somebody who does that for you like how does that work I do I do my own programming for the most part right now I'm actually getting help with deadlift I was saying I'm about to head down to Houston to do a training camp for world's strongest man and I'm addressing my weakness and I'm getting help from Cale Beck who runs startingstrongman.com and he's been helping me a lot actually he's actually been like guiding me through a lot of my training stuff whenever I need to transition since he's been teaching you what are you noticing with your dead is it mechanical breakdown somewhere or what do you notice it's just it's from in my case it's mostly just I haven't been doing it enough long enough like I went from never deadlifting to that day I did that 350 or 340 whatever I did that log that first time I tried it I tried to deadlift max as well and I could barely pull 400 till fast forward like seven months later I'm in England and I pulled 400 kilos then like it was just too much too quick and so it wrecked me my lower back was bad I pinched a nerve I pinched my sciatic and I was my legs were numb for about two weeks and then it was so bad I was sleeping in my car cause I couldn't lay down I had a studio in Corleitas which is man if you're ever in Santa Cruz, Corleitas is the spot but the meat market shout out to the best meat but I was I had a studio so I didn't have like a chair or anything like that so I would sit in my truck and sleep at night and I had to do that for a couple of weeks and I was still training at that time too I was getting ready for nationals so I was still training and doing everything I could so you're sleeping in a truck and you're training still for this while your back is all damn loud it was that's that fuck it I'm going to do what it takes attitude that's that shit right there I was just not going to fail are you doing like mobility work now and stuff with that I do a lot of that stuff okay that's great I'm way more way more into keeping myself healthy now I do there's also this weird thing with strongman and with heavy lifting this whole like we don't warm up thing yeah it's ridiculous and at the time I just listen to people you know like when other people have been successful and you're around them they're like I'll take what you say and I'll try it and that's there's just a lot of bullshit information out there man that's one of the reasons I'm doing my best to like kind of promote this new style where you can actually be fit you can actually warm up and stretching isn't bad and cardio is cool you know so talk about more I want to expand on that because this is a lot of what motivated us for our show was what we saw kind of more in the body building industry so the body building all this bro information that's been passed down I noticed the way you were training and it was so different from the other Strongman I was looking at and I was like really curious to dive into that shit I'm the only Strongman that's at the level that I'm at that can go hiking and walking none of them can like everyday shit yeah easy shit like I mean I hike for maybe more times a week every time I go anywhere I find a spot and I do it there too and I'm not saying like I'm hiking like Kilimanjaro or nothing I'll do four, five, six miles and I take my time I don't rush and I also do hill sprints while I'm doing it too but um has it all contributed positively to your performance? for sure even just walking around has helped my low back so much so much just not being uh like stagnant you know just moving around it's really important guys get caught up and routine and comfort and you know just it becomes a problem especially when you work as hard as I do so you got you got to elution stuff up now do you do you do this full time or this is it wow what's it like making a living competing and being in strongman if somebody came to you and said hey I want to do it yeah I want to do it you do it man yeah oh man oh man I'd say I'd say have a backup plan but have a backup plan I'd say go pick up a 350 pound fucking oh good first day right exactly but having a backup plan is also a crutch that's going to keep you from getting it anyways I didn't have anything I was I was a fucking bouncer for a club doing late night work trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself because I had always thought I was going to be an athlete I didn't have a backup plan so when it came down to it I just wasn't going to fail like I had nothing to fall back on and that's what made me do it you know and there's a lot of guys out there who've gone down that road and didn't make it those guys have done better than me guys have done worse than me and never found a way to make it to a club so I'm grateful for that I I fucking earned it I worked my ass off but I'm very grateful that things came together the way they did how does that work is it mostly sponsorships or is it through self-promotion programs you're selling you know coaching it's mostly sponsorships I do coaching it's not I've just started doing the coaching the thing is about coaching I've said coaching six times now coaching the thing about that is is you it's the same as the bro science and all that shit you're just giving out bad information or just template information which I mean it's fine if you have templates but if if you're selling templates as coaching then you're a fucking dick in my opinion you need to actually be able to take the time and watch people work and have an actual conversation and figure out what people need to do to get better and if you're doing that then that's fine but oh man there's just so many people that are like I've got 600 clients there's no fucking way you can't even watch 25 people properly there's no way no way that's integrity right there yeah well I just don't want to be doing other people what happened to me I don't like that idea you know like it's not it's not worth the money fuck that do you think it's changing is it changing right now or do you feel like you're one of the few that are actually preaching that message um the other thing is I don't pay attention too much like I don't see people when I go to expos and I pay attention to it a little bit like my best friend Kale the guy who helped me with my deadlift he fucking won't leave me alone telling me what everybody's doing all the time I have an athlete page on Facebook so I don't see people's Facebook shit my Instagram like I'm very active on there and I follow and I check stuff out but a lot of that stuff tends to come from like older it's like older demographic it just seems um at least at least in the strength world and now now that I'm thinking about it as I say it like there's a ton of guys who do like that type of coaching on Instagram and stuff like that where I would see it but it's it's a different it's not strength like it's more like an aesthetic type of lifting right right do you have are there any strongman athletes past or present that you or model yourself after Bill Kazma oh fuck the man the man you know I saw him I went to an Arnold Classic years ago he's been way retired and he fucking folded up a frying pan like it was like it was a piece of paper I thought that I thought that shit was a joke you know and he's letting everybody grab it and I'm like this is a real frying pan and his hands were like he's the man dude and and I'm sure he'd be cool with me to sharing this he and I actually we got along great and then we had like a disagreement about something I don't remember and we had a conversation like four or five months after this disagreement and we're both very straightforward I'll say we're very straightforward that's what I loved about him like you watch his old shit and dude it makes me want to fucking punch the wall or something like I love that stuff so he was he and I both had kind of a disagreement it was a few months later and he came up to me and spoke to me around was around people I was an expo he came up to me and he was like hey man I just want to talk to you about this I felt I felt this was what's going on and we talked about it like like it was 19 fucking 65 and real men still existed and it was the coolest thing that I'd ever seen somebody of that stature do and like I was like I was blown away I was fucking blown away he didn't care that people were standing around he didn't care that he was I mean who am I compared to Bill Kasmeier like it's not like he was coming over to fucking stand up guy yeah that's what I'm saying stand up dude like a real man I was I was so impressed and I mean I would be very proud to represent America the way he has awesome man is there anybody in your in your family that was just real strong I mean you've got these genes from somewhere I've got 10 siblings and holy cow wait wait 10 siblings 11 kids now there's 11 growing up there was 9 so yes there's 11 now I was I'm number 8 and no there was that much food left over to feed you did you eat the rest of them dude we never had money but we grew up like going to church and stuff so we would get church food so we were stock full of food all the time but like I remember there was a big part of our life where we were very very poor like the knockoff fruit loops and shit oh man the knockoff fruit loops the cans the stuff that say like desert food industries all that shit that was I was well fed but yeah it's there was 10 of us and none of them were really big my brother Dave was a wrestler like like actual wrestling and he was I'm sure a little bit bigger than average I don't know it's hard for me to are you that much bigger than everybody else I'm way bigger than everybody really way bigger yeah it's not even close out of that many kids not one other one so not mom dad grandpa uncle and dad's got a thick chest he's he's a little bit shorter than average mom's tiny it's what it is I think I mean is like news came down exactly Maui you know I can sing the whole song too I got a two year old I know all I know all the songs from mama but my dad's dad was thick like barrel chested farmer guy and then my mom's dad was tall and I think I just got both of those jeans best of both that's pretty crazy that many siblings now what was that like growing up you guys get along a lot did you fight a lot when you're little what was it like growing up are you still close it was a mix I mean it was never it was never fighting like real fighting it was just brother sister stuff right but yeah we're all very close the thing about growing up like that when you have no money and you have ten siblings is is you just you learn how to bond together yeah you bond and it becomes like you develop that part of you that that's creative that's that's gonna keep you entertained or keep you like growing building whatever we do like you know we didn't have the not only was there not really like games and stuff like there is now but we didn't even we didn't even have electricity for a lot of the time so I mean we'd just be outside trying to fucking create stuff kick again we literally played kick the can all the fucking time it was a compact car for him we had we had a minivan that didn't work and I don't know if this sounds so stupid but we would literally we had a driveway behind an orchard we had a driveway that was like maybe two blocks long and we would take turns steering while someone else would push down the driveway and we would just go back and forth man I think that's the first exercise I ever got was pushing the car up and down the driveway that's excellent so I want to ask you nutrition wise because every time I you know I look at strong man I look at the nutrition I imagine myself like they got to be eating a tremendous amount of calories how much were you eating when you were up at 440 pounds were you tracking I went for a little while 20 what yeah 20,000 holy shit no for reals we did a video for a vice about it and I did that for a short while you legit ate 20,000 calories a day what does it look like like what is that I mean it depends on what I'm eating that day it's not that big of a deal really like it depends on what you put down I can't do that five days no so like what would breakfast be like give me a rundown like a typical probably like 10 eggs ish maybe a little bit more than I don't know I would always have some kind of carb with it like I basically just ate what I wanted and then if I didn't eat enough I would throw more on at the end of the day so like just a bunch of eggs whatever kind of toast I had this pasta that I made for that vice show that I would eat all the time like a family recipe which is just this big bowl of pasta with a bunch of different types of meat and types of like go half pasta sauce or red sauce and half salsa stuff like that or the French bread which the recipe is literally just mayonnaise and cheese over the top oh shit and you put that in the oven it tastes amazing it's just as bad as mayonnaise and cheese but it tastes so fucking good man it's so good it's not hard to get 20,000 calories so when you when you're dieting down would you go down to like 15,000? oh no I would drop dude I went keto for four weeks I went keto for four weeks and then now I don't know the exact number but I'm guessing I'm around around five-ish okay I have a nutritionist Nathan Payton does my nutrition and he's phenomenal like especially because I'm I'm kind of hard headed and nitpicky about stuff with that like I just I wanted it to be very specific and I wanted it to be something that I could travel with because I'm on the road so much so we dialed it in and it's working how is digestion when you're eating that many calories and stuff because it sounds I mean you have to be able to digest all that food yeah I never really had a problem I mean lately I've been switching back and forth between regular whey protein and plant protein I've worked with GAT supplements oh okay so like John Jones is a part of that yeah so I get spoiled the best stuff and dude you could never ask for a better pre-workout than NitroFlex do you guys take pre-workouts no I haven't oh man next time you want one I'll hook you up alright send it over telling you that stuff I'll take one quarter of the dosage so like I get spoiled I have the supplement so like I do whey protein in the morning and then halfway through the day I switch to plant protein and the plant proteins really help me I started doing more like kombucha and stuff like that trying to make it help that gut yeah I mean what are some of the things that you notice when you went from you know mayonnaise cheese bread to now like really honing in I was way less happy at first I wish I could eat that food and still weigh 360 but no when I went keto it was cool I could tell things were working three weeks in because I was my body was just like what the fuck you know I remember I was at the Anaheim Fit Expo and I do I do expos all the time where I'm meeting people and it's cool and I'm I'm great I'm easy I'm easy to get along with I love like meeting people we have a blast but I was like just being a dick I just couldn't shake it I was so irritable and I just couldn't shake it and I called up my nutritionist and I was like what the fuck are you doing to me I'm on the road right now you know so did it about another week ended up doing it for a month and then came back so right now I don't do that many carbs still I do like one cooked cup of rice a day that's about it isn't that great how the body can perform well with all these different varieties once you make it adjust your body is a great machine you just got to tell it what to do and then just make it fucking do it like I everyone kept telling me how I was going to lose strength when I was doing this was just basically riding me off and I just was like nah I just I made myself go to the gym I made myself do everything the same way and my numbers went great at first took me about three months to figure it back out and now I'm stronger than ever we did the show stronger and lighter that's fucking faster my cardio is better yeah you can't beat that that's amazing so much better we did the show in Manchester the finals for world's strongest man I'm sure that's not exactly what it's called but we did that and I PR'd on everything we did a 340 log might have been 330 we did a 340 ish log for reps 60 seconds I did it seven times wasn't even out of breath afterwards put it down I was going to say the endurance must be a big advantage it's so big cause like all the guys are gassing out everyone else is like huffing and puffing and done and I'm walking around pacing the guy in the front row and drank it and I just kept talking shit I was I was letting England know that America was there to take it he gave me the microphone and what did you say he said I took the microphone actually he said the guy said something about what do I think about England and I I was like well I love England I just can't stand the weather the food or the people you should have heard 12,000 people they were so mad the best I went to do the stones at the end we got fish and chips they used breakfast ham instead of bacon come on it's 2017 people so we were about to do the stone run and have our back to the crowd and they introduced me they said and you know coming out of America Robert Overton I just put my hand like this everyone listening can see it I'm sure and I put my hand up and I just hear 12,000 people just hating me screaming and like right now I'm getting goosebumps and you loved it I fucking loved it I loved it I loved it that's the best I'll take that I'll take that all day and I turn around we ran through those stones and I PR'd on everything I'm one motion to 380 stone like didn't even lap it just put it up and then ran through everything finished the last stone was like between 4 and 420 I don't remember then I turned around and walked towards the crowd and just like putting my hands out just screaming at them I was just going to ask you so is that the most memorable win or moment you've had? yeah so far so far that was the best man there's been a lot of great moments along the way and there's been I've had way too much fun but to do that in front of that kind of crowd it was great at that I thought you were just jacked yeah that's fantastic do you do any auxiliary work? is that part of strongman training things like curls and tricep really for sure yeah I mean you have curls are probably the most neglected for me but I do them just to make sure they don't tear there's like guys tear that that's kind of common isn't it? oh super common especially on the stone the first time I picked the stone up actually what I noticed more than anything else was the strain on my bicep out of everything else not my bag probably because you're not used to that much tension at that extension exactly and it's a weird way of squeezing it you're like you know that like super hug machine at the gym where you're squeezing it together the peck deck the super hug machine super hug that thing right there those muscles are a lot of how you pick it up off the ground too there's just a lot of weird little intricacies with strongman that you wouldn't really think about like the biceps and the stones or when you're cleaning an axle and you got to go over under him I don't know if the listeners like if I could just say over under so if you got to go over under and you're going to continental clean it when you pop it up and that thing gets over 330, 340 like that's a big bicep curl yeah so I do stuff to keep safe there and triceps man triceps got to be strong so a lot of stuff I do upper back three times a week there's you know hamstrings cannot be done enough you got to hit everything what if someone were to enter or want to enter into strongman what would you say that they would need someone says hey I want to do strongman what could they look for in themselves and see if this is something they can do well it all depends on their goal and what they want to do with it but there's a lot of tips on training and how to train even if you don't have equipment and there's a map with like every gym location in America and more I think that's all across the globe it's all on startingstrongman.com you can learn how to practice stones with rubber plates or different things like that how to practice yoke if you don't have a yoke or log all that kind of stuff and honestly it's just like anything else you just go have some fun figure it out like I've never heard of anyone doing a strongman show for the first time and not having a blast never heard of that I got my ass kicked the first time I competed and I had a blast man I got like seventh out of nine if you look at some people though and go like you just couldn't if they it's hard I don't know what you mean if you're saying like they want to be the best in the world and they're fourth foot nine then maybe they're going to have a hard time but like if you want to just do the sport and be the best you can everybody can do that and the other thing is Vototus Lawless is from Lithuania man I want to say he's like five five five six like he's tiny and he got second place he was in first place you got to fucking do it like he would pop it up and like almost hold it there with his head and then push it up over just if you guys want to see somebody not letting their height hinder them you can look up Vototus Lawless so years ago I've always been into exercise I've been in fitness for a long time and my goals initially were aesthetic strength, admired strength and I read a book I think in my, I want to say my you're messing up already, you shouldn't be reading books not good for Strongman fuck that, no, there's Jackass over here reading books you gotta live late son there was a book called Dinosaur Training I think it was called Dinosaur Training by Kubrick I think is his last name and he talks about all these odd lifts and stuff and so I started doing some more reading on Strongman training from back in the day and current stuff and I started applying some of it to my own training and I had no intentions in wanting to compete in Strongman but I noticed like muscle building effects I noticed aesthetic building effects and there's a lot people can learn from some of the ways you guys train even if someone just wants to look better if they want bigger back or bigger a stone lift has to be one of the most functional things that we do as a human being because if anything I've never squatted with anything on my back right but I sure as shit picked up a lot of shit up off the ground and balanced perfectly farmers carries, farmers stuff that's huge I love pharmacare just think about what a farmer does my traps are huge because of farmers my shoulders are built because of log press it works and it's also fun when you've been training for any amount of time it's like it gets tedious same lift, barbell row today I'm going to try and throw up a log or I'm going to try and pick up these stones that's exciting, it's fun, it's different what made you rest with any of the Celtic games or got into that at all? I did, I did one I won a show in Vegas that qualified me for Giants Live about three years ago and got hammered that night the next morning woke up and they were having a Highland game show like two blocks from the hotel yeah let's go do it I was beat up and still drunk did it, went out there and everyone's drinking during the show too they know how to get down so went out there drinking culture I won every single event handily, like ridiculous and I would throw the weight and then have to hold my hip with my handle out there and I smashed it, it was a blast that's awesome I'm about going to Redding, California in February, I believe it's February 7th I'm going to go up there, do a show it's kind of strong man, Highland games mix and the winner gets to go to Norway so I think I'm going to go do that that's awesome man so moving forward, what's in the future for you man? what are you looking at? next up man, log world championships in London I'm going to kick Eddie Hall's ass and then I'm going to go to Highland he knows it, he's been hiding already man I tried to get him to come out for Manchester he talked a bunch of shit and then he knew he was going to get smashed so he pulls out, he does the log and then he pulls out dude, he's wrapped up and done and he just won't admit it now I feel like you have a great attitude about when you do it, I feel like you're not being vindictive or talking shit or down to somewhere like that oh I'm talking shit how do these guys receive it? don't be fooled most people are cool with it there's definitely there's definitely a lot of people that don't like do you poke Carter at the ones who? I've got 10 siblings man if you show discomfort in what I'm saying would you be wrestling man? I know, I would I had a meeting we spoke with Vince McMahon a while ago we talked about it and it just hadn't come together so it might in the future my buddy is doing it now Adam Scheer he's Braun Strowman in WWE and he's doing great so we'll see that's something I wanted to do as a kid I wanted to do that growing up if they would have got a hold of me before like I was like 21 I would have done whatever they said oh wow but it just never came together well that's awesome man thanks for coming on the show every time I'm around that's as big as you are it just makes me realize that humans are not all the same there's like different categories of humans big and tall store shop exactly but yeah we appreciate you coming on the show yeah dude we'll absolutely do this again and you got to make sure when you come you got to come visit us man I'll be there man lift all our weights we don't have enough for you we have to order we'll figure it out all right we'll check it out go to youtube subscribe to our youtube channel mind pump tv we post a new video every single day we also offer 30 days of coaching for free at mindpumpmedia.com thank you for listening to mind pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted rgb super bundle at mindpumpmedia.com the rgb super bundle includes maps anabolic maps performance and maps aesthetic nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by sal adam and justin to systematically transform the way your body looks feels and performs with detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the rgb super bundle is like having sal adam and justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price the rgb super bundle has a full 30 day money back guaranteed and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show please share the love by leaving us a 5 star rating and review on itunes and by introducing mind pump to your friends and family we thank you for your support and until next time this is mind pump